"Oliver Clothesoff"???

OH, MAN!!! I just saw that!

This is the last group of discs I would worry about on HD disc. I'll wager that 95% of humans wouldn't see the difference between BD and DVD, even when pointed out to them.

Your typical animated line is so thick that reducing to DVD resolution doesn't lose any detail.

The only real benefit IMO is the progressive storage medium.

I can instantly tell the difference between the animated intro of Casino Royale on BD and DVD, and so could everyone I watched the movie with (none of the others own anything beyond DVD). Animation looks amazing on the HD formats, I'm not sure what your problem with them is. You've stated a few times now how you don't think animation benefits from the new foramts.

See above for my "problem". Animation looks amazing on everything. Just hardly seems worth being the final straw that makes someone invest in an expensive new machine. Don't get me wrong, if I already have the equipment, I'll choose the HD disc over the DVD, just not the other way around.

Chicken Little on blu-ray looks absolutely stunning. Really huge difference from the DVD. I bet when Cars and other pixar flicks come out on BD, the difference will be staggering, especially considering how absolutely jaw dropping disney movies on blu-ray have been becoming recently (deja vu, chicken little, the wild, the queen, etc).

Just a warning on Cars. I've been real impressed with the quality of the Disney movies in high def on Starz-HD, especially Chicken Little and The Wild. Cars did not look as nice on Starz-HD, the overall look is a bit soft, and the distant shots look a bit blurry. It may be that Starz didn't get a true high def copy to show, I'm not sure, and also, I only watched maybe 15 minutes of it, but if they did get an official high def copy, prepare to be unimpressed this fall.

But people aren't talking about "line animation" here, but rather computer animated films. And in those that I've seen so far (ie Chicken Little, Open Season), there is quite a difference between BD and DVD, so I'm sure the Pixar titles should be impressive too.

And at any rate, I also was very impressed with the animated intro to Casino Royale (but have to admit that I haven't seen the regular DVD version to compare). Hell, I found that credits sequence more impressive than parts of the film itself, HD wise.

Wait... You say that the PS3 is blowing the Toshiba (HD DVDs) out of the water performance wise? And then you say that the picture quality is not that much of a difference? Huh?

If anything, the Toshiba's are getting better marks for quality, especially with SD upconvertion.

I don't see a $200-$300 BR player this year. Perhaps $400.

HD-DVD $300 by Christmas? Heck, it's there NOW. The Toshiba HD-A2 is $305 shipped from Amazon.

My guess is that $249 and possibly $199 may be the case by Christmas for HD-DVD.

That's one of the shouting points from the BR faithful I just don't get: "Oh yeah? You guys just wait til Blu-Ray has a $300 player and it will all be over!" Uhh... ok, but by that time HD-DVD will have a $200 player, so what's your point?

P.S. Why are we comparing prices anyway? I thought Sony and the BDA declared the format war over 17 times already this year?

exm - I am speaking strictly about the hardware performance. I have been able to fool around with the Toshiba. There are just too many issues while just playing a movie. And the constant firmware upgrades just seems to much. So far, I have had only 1 small issue with performance from my PS3, and that was fixed with the first formware upgrade (wireless firmware upload rocks). And i could care less about upconversion, i bought the PS3 for the discs. I already have a good upconverting Samsung dvd player.

And the only reason why I say what excuse will people have once the players get cheap enough is because of the studios that are releasing already on BR, but but HD DVD. If the studios start releasing in HD DVD, then Blu Ray should start worrying about its life span. Until then, if the BR players start getting to more ralistic costs, i think people will simply start weighing the options of what's avalible for what format.

As opposed to the PS3, which has had about 137 firmware updates since launching in November?

Yeah, no kidding. I have updated my Toshiba less than my PS3, used at least 10 times more and had hlaf the trouble out of it. I had one disc it screwed up on. Guess what the PS3 could not play that DVD either. The PS3 was glitching every movie I watched until one firmware update was sent. I just can't see anyone saying the PS3 is blowing the Toshiba players out of the water. The only thing it does better is startup time and play BD discs. Trust me, if it were not for the latter I would not fool with owning one.

Close. I think we are on 7 now. And to be fair, "most" of the updates are for game related things. There have been some essential updates to BD as well (Still waiting for upconvert, grrr).

Can hardly wait for Pixar on BD!

I have no experience with the PS3; after owning a HD A1 and HD XA2 I can tell you that I've had ZERO problems with any HD DVDs.

exm, can I ask why you have 2 HD DVD players? I'm still open to getting one if I don't experience the same issues as before.

Also, all of the firmware upgrades have not been strictly for playing Blu Ray movies. The ones I've read up on are mostly due to adjustments for playing the games. I know there were some issues with playing the PS2 games on it. There has only been one upgrade centering on the movies as far as I know.

I entirely agree. Animation upscales so well that my Pixar and Disney animated DVDs are good enough for now. It is the live-action stuff from Sony/Columbia, Disney/Miramax, and Fox that will eventually get me to buy a BD player when the prices get reasonable. For me that would be in the $200 to $300 range.

I sold my A1, so I only have one (XA2).

I will admit that I have only watched about 4 movies on my PS3 (Casino Royale, Rocky Balboa, etc.) and so far I don't like it as much as the HD-DVD. Hopefully that will change, but the picture didn't quite seem as good. Pixar doesn't sway me much, but having both formats, it is nice to see more movies coming.